Mothers who kill: Cross-cultural patterns in and perspectives on contemporary maternal filicide

Mothers who kill: cross-cultural patterns in and perspectives on contemporary maternal filicide.

Men who kill their own children: paternal filicide incidents in contemporary Fiji.

OBJECTIVE Filicide, or parental murder of offspring, constitutes a major portion of lethal violence perpetrated against children worldwide. Despite the global nature of the phenomenon, researchers have focused their studies on the developed industrialized societies with the consequent neglect of small, developing societies. Second, there is a paucity of empirical data on child homicide committe...

Filicidal mothers and the impact of psychosis on maternal filicide.

The objective of this study was to examine a sample (n = 55) of filicidal mothers to compare those with and without psychotic symptoms at the time of the filicide. Clinical data were gathered through retrospective chart review of filicidal women referred for criminal responsibility/competence to stand trial evaluations from 1974 to 1996 at Michigan's Center for Forensic Psychiatry. Most (52.7%)...

Filicide: Mental Illness in Those Who Kill Their Children

BACKGROUND Most child victims of homicide are killed by a parent or step-parent. This large population study provides a contemporary and detailed description of filicide perpetrators. We examined the relationship between filicide and mental illness at the time of the offence, and care received from mental health services in the past. METHOD All filicide and filicide-suicide cases in England a...

Maternal filicide in Québec.

In an eight-year review (1991 to 1998) of all consecutive coroners' files in Québec, Canada, the authors identified a total of 34 cases of victims who were killed by their mothers. Most victims were less than six years of age, and there were several cases in which multiple siblings were murdered. There were 27 mothers in the sample, and 15 of those women committed suicide after the filicide. A ...